The unspoken story of the 2024 B.C. election campaign: mass death among less grievable subjects
Richmond-Bridgeport independent candidate Charlie Smith is calling for high-profile memorials to commemorate thousands of lives lost to COVID-19 and toxic street drugs
This morning, I woke up with the following thoughts in my mind.
It’s not good enough to say that you deserve my vote because you’re not an extremist.
It’s not good enough to say that you deserve my vote just because you accept the reality of anthropogenic global warming. Especially when you endorse “Net Zero LNG” projects that are not even in the universe of net-zero fossil-fuel emissions on the upstream (production) and downstream (use of the finished product).
It’s not good enough to say that you support tough action on the climate when you are willing to cancel the carbon tax and you won’t supply another demand-side solution in its place.
It’s not good enough to say that you support evidence-based responses to COVID-19 when you utterly ignore best practices to contain the spread of the virus.
It’s not good enough to say that you care about people who use street drugs when you refuse to embrace the only viable solution to prevent thousands of toxic-drug deaths in B.C.: a safe supply.
This is my predicament when it comes to the B.C. NDP.
Then after having these thoughts, I started scrolling through the Unmask the Right feed on X (formerly Twitter). It’s a veritable gallery of extremists, anthropogenic global warming deniers, anti-mRNA activists, and neo-Nazis. Some of the people featured here are running for the legislature with the B.C. Conservatives.
I can’t remember when B.C. politics was so depressing.
Credit where credit is due
I recognize that the B.C. NDP has some accomplishments. First of all, it is turning the ship of state toward true reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.
Moreover, I admire how Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon promotes real solutions to the housing shortage while preventing huge rent increases for tenants who are able to remain in their buildings.
Under former premier John Horgan, the government also took steps to address the high cost of childcare, though progress stalled somewhat after David Eby became premier. More health workers have been hired. ICBC rates are lower.
It’s worth noting, however, that these low rates are coming at considerable cost. Some crash victims have no hope in hell of replacing lost income under Eby’s no-fault fiat. And it may not matter how many health workers are hired as long as the government avoids appropriate measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in hospitals.
Yet my primary problem with the B.C. NDP government continues to lie in its willingness to embrace “mass death among less grievable subjects”, to quote U.S. scholar Martha Lincoln. These mass deaths will inevitably occur as a result of politicians’ refusal to do the right things.
This includes the party’s responses to toxic drugs and COVID-19. We’re also seeing it in its policies around rising greenhouse gas emissions, which will inevitably lead to more deadly heat domes and highway-wrecking atmospheric rivers.
The B.C. NDP does a magnificent job with communications. It has focused an entire election campaign around the anti-science malcontents running as B.C. Conservative candidates. That will return David Eby to the premier’s office, notwithstanding his government’s failure to reduce mass preventable deaths.
By Saturday (October19) night, Eby will have persuaded enough British Columbians to vote for him primarily because he’s not a right-wing extremist.
But afterward, we’ll continue to see mass death among less grievable subjects.
I am running as an independent candidate in Richmond-Bridgeport because I believe that the B.C. government can do better. A good start would be for us to bring mass death among less grievable subjects into the spotlight.
This is one way to change public attitudes.
Memorials focus minds and open hearts
To that end, I propose that the B.C. government create two prominent memorials in very public and accessible spaces to those who’ve lost their lives to toxic drugs and COVID-19.
There’s a memorial to victims of the 1985 Air India bombings in Stanley Park. This serves as a permanent reminder of that these terrorist bomb plots executed in B.C. claimed the lives of 331 innocent people.
There is a Vancouver AIDS Memorial at English Bay in Vancouver. There are memorials across the country to Canadian military members who made the ultimate sacrifice.
In addition, there are memorials for murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls in different parts of Canada, including Stella Joan Plaza in North Vancouver and CRAB Park in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
Last year, we lost 2,500 British Columbians to toxic street drugs. We don’t even know how many thousands of British Columbians died due to complications from COVID-19. That’s because some of those complications—including brain injuries and heart attacks—didn’t occur until after the virus had led to immune dysfunction.
Let’s remember these lost loved ones in a public way. Let’s do it to comfort family members. Let’s also do it to help make mass death of less grievable subjects more socially unacceptable in the future.